Horizontal Directional Drilling Application in a Wide River Crossing in the Amazon Rain Forest

Horizontal Directional Drilling, as known as HDD, is a method of construction that requires few trenches or no continuous trenches, used for making crossings under rivers, roads and existing structures. In the oil and gas industry, it is most commonly used in offshore and onshore well drilling activities to better explore the reservoir from a single well. It is also very much used when laying pipelines, where no other feasible option is possible. This technology was widely applied in the Urucu-Manaus natural-gas pipeline construction by Petrobras, and Transpetro has been responsible for the operation and maintenance of this pipeline since November 2009, flowing Natural Gas from the heart of the Amazon forest mainly to the growing market of thermoelectric plants. Due to its extension in the forest, the crossing of numerous wide navigable rivers and other natural obstacles was unavoidable, and no other construction methods were more suitable than the HDD technology. This work shows the application of this method in the 1777m long crossing of the Solimões River during the construction of this 662km Natural Gas pipeline. It also shows the challenges faced due to the logistical adversities in the rainforest, as well as the operations by Transpetro.